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‘Jesus Christ Superstar’: Ian Gillan Joins A Different Cast

Even as Gillan became a rock god with Deep Purple, he starred in the famous musical’s cast album.

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'Jesus Christ Superstar' artwork: UMG
'Jesus Christ Superstar' artwork: UMG

Ian Gillan was on his way to being a superstar with Deep Purple when he played one in the lead role of a musical. It was the Decca album version of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ Superstar. Released on October 12, 1970, it reached No.1 in the US on the February 20, 1971 chart.

The recorded incarnation of the musical was the original, created before the show became a smash hit stage show. Its cast list is fascinating, as it contained a number of artists who went on to considerable success in their own right, and some others who were enjoying success elsewhere at the time.

Gillan’s rise and rise

As the Superstar album emerged in the autumn of 1970, Gillan was in the charts as Purple’s frontman, with the “Black Night” single and In Rock album. He played Jesus Christ opposite the young Yvonne Elliman as Mary Magdalene, a role she reprised for four years in the stage version.

Elliman had modest success in early 1972 with a version of the show’s “I Don’t Know How To Love Him.” She then hit her chart stride in the second half of the 1970s, with hits like “Love Me” and “Hello Stranger” and, of course, a place on the immortal Saturday Night Fever soundtrack with “If I Can’t Have You.“

Murray Head, who played Judas Iscariot, made the charts in America and Canada with the album’s near-title song “Superstar.” He went on to a prosperous acting and singing career that has continued for decades, and included the huge 1984 hit “One Night In Bangkok.”

Former Manfred Mann frontman Mike D’Abo was already pursuing a career as a songwriter and part-time actor, and took the album role of Judas Iscariot. Bass player John Gustafson, who played Simon Zealotes, was a veteran of groups such as the Big Three, and later reunited with his colleague from this record in the Ian Gillan Band.

A notable supporting cast

Other notables on the LP included soul singer P.P. Arnold, British singer-songwriter Lesley Duncan, and rock keyboardist Tony Ashton. He was enjoying a major UK hit with “Resurrection Shuffle” as a member of Ashton, Gardner & Dyke, even as Superstar hit the US summit.

Listen to the Prog Rock Monsters playlist.

The Jesus Christ Superstar album reached No.23 in the UK but fared considerably better elsewhere, hitting the Top 10 in Australia and some European markets. But its great triumph was in America, where it spent three non-consecutive weeks at No.1, interrupted by Janis Joplin’s Pearl. 

Buy or stream the original Jesus Christ Superstar cast album.

5 Comments

5 Comments

  1. dacian

    October 13, 2015 at 3:07 pm

    Mike D’Abo played King Herod

  2. rick

    October 18, 2015 at 5:20 pm

    Mike also wrote Handbags and Gladrags,and sang vocals for Manfred Mann

  3. Toad

    February 20, 2017 at 7:11 pm

    Yep, the album version was pretty great. My Christian parents bought this album when I was a kid, and they lived to regret it. I used to sing the opening Judas song in the bathtub, and they could hear their little boy howling throughout the house, “Jesus! You’ve started to believe/These things they say of you/You really do believe/This talk of god is true-ue-ue…” My mother actually spoke to me about it: “Son, some of those songs, out of context…” I think I could still sing that whole thing from memory, these many decades later.

    • Graeme

      December 25, 2017 at 7:56 am

      Listening to it right now, on Xmas day ironically. I am also singing along to almost all the lyrics 30 years later. Brilliant music throughout the entire album.

  4. Tito Dick "Dickman," baby!

    May 1, 2018 at 2:11 am

    This makes the ‘jesus christ the guy from deep purple sang this’ comment (it’s the artist’s name in the metadata of the mp3 of ‘Eternity,’ a boss theme taken from Blue Dragon) from Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden even better lmao.

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